5 Realistic Snow Day Ideas & Tips for Working Moms

Inside: Is your Pinterest feed filled with snow day ideas that do not include you getting any work done as a working mom or dad? Try these realistic ideas instead!

Surprise! It’s a snow day!

The kids are bouncing around on their beds in pajamas celebrating their weekday freedom. “Snow day, snow day, snow day!”

With bleary eyes, you scan your calendar for the day to see how this is all going to work. In less suprising news, you have meetings. Lots and lots of meetings. Maybe you can reschedule a couple, but for the most part you’re locked in.

So what’s a working mom to do? You could head over to Pinterest and get some snow day ideas that involve complicated crafts and baking tiramasu. Or you could use these realistic ideas below and make the most of your snow day without going driving yourself bananas.

Realistic Snow Day Ideas for Working Moms (No Crafting Needed!)

1) Set your expectations limbo style low.

Low, get lower now. How low can you go?

With appropriately set expectations, any magical moment you achieve while building a wonky-looking snowman is a pleasant surprise! (And the tense conversation you have with your five-year-old about the string cheese wrapper stuffed into the couch cushion is expected.)

Low snow day expectations for the win.

2) Divide and conquer.

If you and your partner are both working from home when the kids have a snow day, pull up your calendars side by side and figure out what times you each have available.

That way one of you is on call to make sure the kids don’t run with scissors while the other one hides with noise-blocking headphones.

And when both of you have important meetings at the same time that you’d ideally prefer a child not interrupt while practicing his or her wolf howl then…

3) Screens!

Sceen time, screen time, screen time, screeeeeeen time.

Try Frozen, Frozen II, Moana to warm up a little, something with subtitles for reading practice, Die Hard for a change of pace.

Whatever, man.

Ditch the guilt on this one. The kids will be fine, and quiet, and you can get the educational flashcards out later.

Until then, and when they have reached the end of Netflix, there are always…

4) Kid’s Podcasts

Podcasts have been a life saver around here in 2020-2021.

Podcasts keep the kids off screens, help them stay entertained, and are educational. Plus, and here’s the real kicker – no one is asking questions! The questions are all very well answered by the podcast hosts. Hooray!

Here’s a list of some of our favorite podcasts for kids that my five and four-year-olds have binged. One particular podcast they are loving right now is Who Smarted? which is a history and science podcast that teaches kids about stuff like “who discovered radiation?” and “how do our tongues work?”

I promise, that second lesson will come in handy when you’re sending the fruits of your loins outside to stop tearing apart your home and one of them is tempted to lick the gutter.

5) Hot chocolate solves most problems.

It really, really does. Keep a stash of hot chocolate on hand for those surprise snow day calls because…

Kid got hit in the face with a snowball? Hot chocolate.

Need silence for 45 seconds? Hot chocolate.

Looking at a long night of catching up with work? Hot chocolate.

Boil that river, Wonka. We’ve diving in!

Good luck out there, Snow Day Champions!

I realize I’m not breaking much new ground here with these snow day ideas, but the big takeaway should be this. You don’t need to do it all. You CAN’T do it all!

Get out into the snow with your kids if you can.

Let Daniel Tiger’s mom babysit your kids if you can’t.

You’re doing a great job either way. Keep it up. You’ve got this!